1. No category

Advanced
Pharmaceutical
Bulletin
Adv Pharm Bull, 2015, 5(2), 217-222
doi: 10.15171/apb.2015.030
http://apb.tbzmed.ac.ir
Research Article
Evaluating the Anti-nociceptive and Anti-inflammatory Effects of
Ketotifen and Fexofenadine in Rats
Mahdieh Anoush1,2*, Mohammad Reza Mohammad Khani1
1
2
Department of Pharmacology& Toxicology, School of Pharmacy, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Znjan, Iran.
Applied Drug Research Center, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Znjan, Iran.
Article info
Article History:
Received: 9 June 2014
Revised: 20 July 2014
Accepted: 21 July 2014
ePublished: 1 June 2015
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Keywords:
Ketotifen
Fexofenadine
Analgesic
Anti-inflammatory
Formalin test
Carrageenan test
Abstract
Purpose: As H1 and H3 receptors’ roles has been defined in peripheral pains in some
papers and because histamine is known for its role in inflammatory responses; this study
investigated the possible analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects of ketotifen and
fexofenadine as relatively safe long acting anti histamines in both chronic chemical pain and
acute inflammation in rats.
Methods: In this study, male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 225-250 grams were used. In
order to evaluate the chemical chronic pain, sub-plantar injection of formalin applied and
the pain scores were recorded every 15 seconds during 60 minutes. Carrageenan injection to
the right hind paw was used for induction of acute inflammation and the paw edema was
measured every 60 minutes for 4 hours.
Results: Based on the results, both ketotifen and fexofenadine were able to significantly
diminish chemical acute and chronic pain as well as inflammation in comparison with the
control group and the effects were acceptable according to the standard treatment. Both
effects for fexofenadine started later than those of ketotifen.
Conclusion: According to the outcomes of the study, ketotifen and fexofenadine
demonstrated significant analgesic and anti-inflammatory characteristics in both models of
chemical pain and acute inflammation in laboratory animals.
Introduction
The possible role of histamine in pain and inflammation
was reported in 1958 for the first time,1 but was under
estimated till 1983.2 Later on, lots of papers suggest
different aspects of histamine as the main autocoid in
allergic symptoms. Yet very few papers, suggest it as an
inflammatory mediator until 2003 during which, a study
on knockout mice represented the role of anti-histamines
in inflammation.3 Apparently the next step was to
determine the role of different histamine blocking agents
in the management of allergic reactions as well as pain
and inflammation; While the role of H1 anti histamines
in this area was neglected, may be because of their vast
effects according to their CNS penetration property.
The major clinical treatment for allergic diseases at the
present is suppression of inflammation symptoms.4
Allergic reactions involve the release of histamine or
other mediators from mast cells, cellular infiltration and
inflammation respectively.5 Allergy symptoms can be
relieved effectively by suppressing any of these events.6
Fexofenadine, the active metabolite of terfenadine, is
selective histaminic H1 receptor antagonist currently
indicated for use in seasonal allergic rhinitis and chronic
idiopathic urticaria worldwide,7 which was believed not
to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) till 2009. 8
Fexofenadine is rapidly absorbed and has a long duration
of action, making it suitable for once daily
administration.9 It undergoes minimal metabolism,10
therefore is used as a probe substrate for the Pglycoprotein efflux transporter (P-gp). Fexofenadine has
been
shown
to
suppress
eosinophil-induced
inflammatory cytokine release from epithelial cells,11 and
to inhibit the release of chemotransmitters from
basophils in vitro.12
Ketotifen also was suggested to improve allergic
inflammation by decreasing lymphocytes in bronchial
asthma13 and later on known as a mast cell stabilizer.14-15
There is no approved evidence for analgesic property of
ketotifen except a controlled trial carried out in year 1994
in order to control neurofibroma-associated pain and
itching using ketotifen again as a mast cell stabilizer.16
Despite the importance and high prevalence of
conditions related to pain and inflammation, the number
of new analgesics and anti-inflammations that have been
introduced into clinical practice remains low.17 Among
the most widely used medications for inflammation, are
non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) which
their world wide use is because of their demonstrated
efficacy in reducing pain and inflammation.18
Although effective at relieving pain and inflammation,
NSAIDs are associated with serious adverse events
specially in chronic administration.19 Thus, many
pharmaceutical industries and researchers have dedicated
*Corresponding author: Mahdieh Anoush, Tel: (+98) 24-33473637, Fax: (+98) 24-33473639, Email: anoushm@zums.ac.ir
©2015 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY), which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from
the authors or the publishers.
Anoush and Mohammad khani
their efforts to search for safer drugs representing the same
effect or even less potencies but with less adverse effects.
Histaminic receptors especially H13,20 and H421-23
receptors have been shown to interfere with pain and
inflammation. Therefore it can be deducted that their
antagonists could possibly inhibit pain and
inflammation.24
Based on the above mentioned evidences, we have
investigated, for the first time, the anti-nociceptive and
anti –inflammatory effects of fexofenadine and ketotifen
in chronic pain induction model using formalin test; as
well as an inflammation model of carrageenan induced
paw edema in rats.
Materials and Methods
Animals
Male Sprague-Dawley rats (225-250g) were used in the
present study. Animals were bred in animal department,
School of Pharmacy, and were housed in the animal
holding unit with a 12h light-darkness cycle and airconditioning (22 ±2°C; 45-55% humidity), in Plexi-glass
cages with free access to food and water.
The animals were handled and used according to the
animal handling protocol of Zanjan University of
Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran; which was approved by
ethics committee. All animals were given a 3 day time to
get acclimatized with laboratory conditions before
experiments begin.
Chemicals
Chemicals include: Carrageenan lambda type I and
formalin
35%
obtained
from
Sigma-Aldrich.
Fexofenadine (Batch No.ABEH000696) and ketotifen
(Batch No.ABDH005217) powders purchased from Soha
(Iran). Normal saline serum and diclofenac ampoules
were bought from Abureihan (Iran), and Tolid Darou
(Iran) Respectively.
Experimental design
All the experiments designed in a way that the number of
animals decreases to an optimum level with the best
result and reproducibility.
9 groups of animals received 3 different doses of
ketotifen, fexofenadine and diclofenac in both formalin
test and carrageenan induced inflammation in order to
find the appropriate dose which has been reported in this
study. The dose-response curves were omitted in order to
abstracting the result section.
Carrageenan-induced Paw Edema in Rats
72 Male Sprague-Dawley (S.D) rats were rendered in nine
groups of each 8. All animals received a sub-plantar
injection of 50 µl 1% (w/v) solution of sterile carrageenan
in saline to the right hind paw which caused acute
inflammation.24 Six groups of animals received 3 different
doses of fexofenadine (10, 15, 20 mg/kg) and ketotifen (1,
1.5, 2 mg/kg), half an hour before carrageenan
administration. Animals in the negative control group
received normal saline (5ml/kg) and animals in the
218 | Advanced Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 2015, 5(2), 217-222
reference group received 25 mg/kg of Diclofenac, as the
standard anti-inflammatory treatment.25 The vehicle
control group received carboxy methyl cellulose (5%), as
the solvent for fexofenadine. It should be mentioned that
ketotifen was dissolved in normal saline itself. According
to the reference,24 paw edema was measured before, and at
the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th hours after induction of
inflammation, using a caliper vernier (scale.0.1mm). All
treatments injected intraperitoneally (I.P).
Formalin Test and the Pain Score
In order to perform this test, 40 male S.D rats were
rendered in 5 groups with 8 rats in each. Prior to
injections, the animals were placed in a cone shaped
chamber for 30 min. The experimental design is
described below:
Negative control group received 5ml/kg of normal saline
while positive control group treated with 25mg/kg of
diclofenac as the standard drug. Animals in test groups
received fexofenadine (15 mg/kg as the optimum dose)
and ketotifen (1.5mg/kg as the optimum dose). The
vehicle control group received CMC (5%). All
treatments were administered I.P, followed by a subplantar injection of 50 µl formalin 2.5%.
The animals were then transferred to the mirror box (a
plexi glass box with a 45 degree mirror at the bottom) in
order to monitor the position of the animal in the
chamber for accurate observation. They were observed
by recording the reflexes every 15 seconds. The
quantitative data was counted per 5 minutes and recorded
based on the pain score on each time interval. The data
gathered within 60 minutes. The first 5 minutes after
injection for all groups was taken in account as acute
phase, and 16-40 minutes as chronic phase.25
Statistical Analysis
In order to perform comparative statistical analysis SPSS
17.0 software was applied. The homogeneity of data was
assessed using one way Analysis of Variances (ANOVA)
while the possible differences between groups were
reported using Tukey post-hoc test. All the results were
expressed as (mean ± SEM) and P values less than 0.05 (P
< 0.05) were determined as significant level of differences.
Results
Effects of Ketotifen on Carrageenan-induced
Inflammation
After a sub-plantar injection of carrageenan the thickness
of hind paw was measured in the rats received
diclofenac, ketotifen and normal saline as positive
control, test, and negative control groups respectively.
As it is shown in Figure 1, ketotifen (1.5 mg/kg) was
able to decrease the hind-paw thickness significantly in
comparison with negative control group (P < 0.001). The
anti-inflammatory responses were weaker than that of
diclofenac as the standard treatment, but not significantly
(P ≥ 0.05). The effects for ketotifen started after the
second hour of inflammation (Figure 1).
Ketotifen and Fexofenadine in Pain and Inflammation
Figure 1. The anti-inflammatory effects of ketotifen and
diclofenac towards hind paw edema. All values represent
Mean ±S.E.M and are at least from 8 independent animals .
** (P <0.01), *** (P <0.001)
Effects of Fexofenadine on Carrageenan-induced
Inflammation
In Figure 2 the anti-inflammatory effects of fexofenadine
has been demonstrated. Fexofenadine (15 mg/kg)
illustrated the best response in this test and showed a
significant difference not only with negative control
group but also with the vehicle control (P < 0.001). The
anti-inflammatory effect started to be significant between
second and third hour.
Figure 3. The effects of ketotifen and diclofenac on formaline
induced hyper algesia. All values represent Mean ±S.E.M and
are at least from 8 independent animals. * (P<0.05), ** (P <0.01)
Effects of Fexofenadine on Formalin-induced Pain
As it can be deducted from Figure 4, fexofenadine was
not able to control acute phase of pain in comparison
with negative control group (P ≥ 0.05). Indeed, it was
able to control the pain intensity in chronic phase.
Besides, there were significant differences between
groups received diclofenac and fexofenadine (P < 0.05)
in acute pain phases (Figure 4).
Figure 4. The effects of fexofenadine and diclofenac on
formaline induced hyper algesia. All values represent Mean
±S.E.M and are at least from 8 independent animals. * (P <0.05),
** (P <0.01), *** (P <0.001)
Figure 2. The anti-inflammatory effects of fexofenadine and
diclofenac towards hind paw edema. All values represent Mean
±S.E.M and are at least from 8 independent animals. ** (P <0.05),
*** (P <0.001)
Effects of Ketotifen on Formalin-induced Pain
In order to assess the analgesic effects of ketotifen, the
pain score was calculated according to Dubuisson Dennis
method26 during 60 minutes. The results obtained from
this method indicated that our treatments were effective
in controlling both acute and chronic pain phases, but not
when the animal experienced the maximum level of pain.
As demonstrated in Figure 3, there has been reported no
significant difference between diclofenac and ketotifen
(P ≥ 0.05) in both acute and chronic pain phases.
Discussion
Based on the bibliographical searches, there were no
studies carried out the assessment of both antiinflammatory and anti nociceptive effects of two long
acting H1 blocking agents ketotifen -with wide range of
central effects- and fexofenadine ( a safe H1 blocker with
little central effects). This study reported these effects for
the first time and suggested some possible related
mechanisms.
In this study two different methods has been applied in
order to identify the possible analgesic and antiinflammatory effects of ketotifen and fexofenadine in rats.
Anti-inflammatory effects of ketotifen and fexofenadine
Results obtained from carrageenan test indicated a
remarkable anti-inflammatory effect for ketotifen with a
significant difference with the negative control group. This
finding is in conformity with a research published in 2003
Advanced Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 2015, 5(2), 217-222 |
219
Anoush and Mohammad khani
suggesting some novel mechanisms such as diminishing
production of eotaxin and expression of CD29, in addition
to the former well known mast-cell stabilizing effect of
ketotifen, in management of inflammatory symptoms of
allergy.27 Besides it has been reported recently that
ketotifen is able to decrease pro-inflammatory mediators,
including nitric oxide, interleukin-1beta, and interleukin-6,
production in rats with gouty inflammation.28 The delay in
responses to ketotifen might be because of its different
mechanism with diclofenac in controlling the acute
inflammation, but more studies needed to fulfill this claim.
Fexofenadine also represented anti-inflammatory effects
in this study. The first possible anti-inflammatory effect
for fexofenadine was introduced by Abdelaziz who
suggested that suggest that fexofenadine may reduce nasal
inflammation
by
modulating
the
release
of
proinflammatory mediators and adhesion molecules from
human nasal epithelial cell.11 Later on, another study
suggested that This study shows that terfenadine and
fexofenadine exert a biologic effect directly on epithelial
cells and fibroblasts reducing some adhesion molecules
expression and release.29
Besides another research mentioned that fexofenadine is
capable of modulating T-Cell functions which resulted in
preventing airway inflanmmation.30 Recently, other
aspects of fexofenadine interfering with inflammation has
been reported such as reducing methacholine-induced
contractions of tracheal smooth muscle.31 Fexofenadine’s
pro-drug has been suggested to use in chronically active
ulcerative colitis in combination with sulfasalazine.32 As
this drug has a dose-dependent kinetics of penetrating into
the CNS,10 more studies needed to determine its central vs.
peripheral effects. The most strong evidence in this field is
a research in 2006 which has been proved that
fexofenadine showed selective arachidonic acid-mediated
COX-2 inhibitory enzyme activity and suggested that, the
selective COX-2 inhibitor activity by fexofenadine may
contribute to its anti-inflammatory properties.33
Therefore no possible mechanisms for analgesic effects of
ketotifen was released or reported yet. According to the
results of this study and to this finding that ketotifen is
able to penetrate BBB and interfere with
paleospinothalamic pain transfer pathway; it can be
deducted that this inhibition through unknown mediators
might be the main mechanism for analgesic responses for
ketotifen.
In the formalin test two phases of pain should be
distinguished. The acute and the chronic pain phases
which assumed as the first 5 minutes after formalin subplantar injection and the time period between 16-45
minutes, respectively; there is a gap between these two
phases (minutes 5-16) with the least nociception
responses. It has been assumed that these two stages
represent two different type of pain related to direct nerve
stimulation (acute pain) followed by an inflammatory
process (chronic stage). In this study fexofenadine was
able to inhibit both acute and chronic phases but its effects
in acute phase were weaker than that of both diclofenac
and ketotifen. This can be either because of systemic
pharmacokinetics of fexofenadine resulted in a longer tmax time in comparison to ketotifen10 or its special model
for brain exposure which makes it difficult to penetrate
from BBB.41-42
Even though there is a lack in documentary for analgesic
properties of fexofenadine, this finding can be supported
by a clinical finding of possible analgesic role of
fexofenadine in incidence of myalgia while patients
receive paclitaxel.43
According to the literature, a reduction in pain,
inflammation and the signal transduction pathway(s)
responsible for both above mentioned phenomenon in the
acute stage results in a reduction in plasticity in dorsal root
of spinal cord via deprivation in P substance 44 for
ketotifen. In addition, some possible interactions between
histaminic H1 receptor and opioid receptors have been
suggested.44-45
Anti nociceptive effects of ketotifen and fexofenadine
In 1989 two H1 blocking agents were introduced to have
analgesic effects on acute surface pain while H2 blocker
agents were proved to do nothing with pain.34 Later on, an
interaction between pain-relieving drugs and the brain
histaminergic system was reported and multiple analgesic
mechanisms suggested for antihistamines such as
improgan and even cimetidine.35 In addition, the role of
histamine in different types of pain include central,36
peripheral,37 acute38 chronic39 or organ related pains such
as muscle pain40 was declared and the number of studies
about antihistaminic agents administration as analgesic
drugs have been augmented and hyper algesic role of H1
receptors have been proved strongly.3,20
In this study ketotifen was capable of inhibiting both acute
and chronic phase in formalin induced pain model. The
efficacy of ketotifen in pain managemen was suggested for
the first time in 1993,16 which was followed by very few
researches but yet, the main emphasis was on its anti
allergic with a few reports on its anti-inflammatory effects.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that both ketotifen and fexofenadineis
are capable of inhibiting pain and acute inflammation in
rat models of sub-plantar injections of formalin and
carrageenan respectively. The exact mechanism(s) for
these effects need to be studied more, via receptor
purification, using full antagonists, or Immuno histo
chemistry assessments in the near future.
220 | Advanced Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 2015, 5(2), 217-222
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Vice Chancellor's Office for
Research Affairs because of the grant supporting this
study (No. A-11-323-5).
Ethical Issues
All animals received human care according to the
guidelines published by the National Institutes of Health
(NIH, 2000). The ethic regulations were followed in
accordance with national and institutional guidelines for
the protection of animal welfare during experiments.
Ketotifen and Fexofenadine in Pain and Inflammation
Conflict of Interest
Authors declare no conflict of interest.
Abbreviations
IP (Intra Peritoneal), CNS (Central Nervous System),
BBB (Blood Brain Barrier). P-gp (P-glycoprotein),
NSAIDS (Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs)
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